Why won’t Netanyahu end the war in Gaza? The answer is staring us in the face

The Israeli prime minister’s decision to break the ceasefire with a new wave of deadly strikes is a politically motivated misadventure, says former Israeli diplomat Alon Pinkas

Do not be fooled to believe the resumption of the war in Gaza has any military justifications, or is intended to produce a better long-term agreement. It is a personal, politically motivated adventure by Benjamin Netanyahu and meant to advance personal political goals.

Unlike Carl von Clausewitz’s dictum that “War is merely the continuation of policy by other means” – that a war’s goals are aligned with and derived from political objectives – there are no political objectives here, only one man desperately clinging to power and trying to salvage his indelibly stained reputation.

Ignore the sanctimonious statements he is making about “necessity”, do not pay attention to the bogus explanations he is offering about grand “military goals”, and avoid his grossly exaggerated boasting on the close coordination with his soulmate, US president Donald Trump: Netanyahu’s decision to unilaterally breach the ceasefire and resume the war in Gaza is entirely and unequivocally motivated by his political survival interests. Everything else is just details.

There is zero military justification for the resumption of the war, and there are scant qualitative military targets that haven’t already been decimated twice since October 2023. A military operation that involves aerial attacks and targeted assassinations of mid-level Hamas semi-anonymous nobodies hardly warrants the resumption of a war, the devastation it brings, nor the callously and inhumane sacrificing of the lives of Israeli hostages who, for almost a year and a half, have been held captive in Hamas tunnels and cages.

If the idea is to “eradicate” or “annihilate” or “obliterate” Hamas once and for all – a legitimate war aim when it all started, and something Netanyahu repeatedly pledged to pursue but failed to achieve over 15 months of war – then there is only way: occupy the entire Gaza Strip.

But everyone knows what that entails: you occupy it, you own it. What begins as a temporary military action metastasizes into full occupation. Just like the “temporary” administration that lasted from 1967, when Israel occupied the Gaza Strip in a defensive war against Egypt until 2005.

The resumption of the war is first and foremost a transparent attempt to distract from Netanyahu’s reckless and ulteriorly motivated decision to dismiss Ronen Bar as head of the Shin Bet – equivalent to MI5 in Britain – as part of his purges of anyone who knows how he operated before and immediately after 7 October 2023.

Then, there is the need to suppress public demonstrations around his responsibility for the war and constitutional coup. More importantly, resuming the war is intended to serve a bigger purpose: the continued forging of an alternative narrative surrounding the policy leading up to, and the calamity of, 7 October 2023.

This is a spurious narrative predicated on distortions and prevarication designed to exonerate Netanyahu. According to this parallel-universe interpretation, Netanyahu is the saviour of Israel who was failed and betrayed by Israel’s military, its security organs and the “deep state”, and therefore carries no responsibility, or should be held accountable for, anything that transpired on the worst day in Israel’s history.

This explains the hyperbolic political language he has been using from the outset: Gaza is an “existential war”; it is “our second war of independence”; and of course, it is “a war on seven fronts” that expanded to include Iran. None of that is even a remotely legitimate depiction.

The logic that underlined Netanyahu’s decision to violate the ceasefire, which held almost flawlessly for 58 days, and renew military operations is the same logic that led him to prolong the war needlessly for 15 months before the ceasefire went into effect in January. Netanyahu has always perceived himself to be an omniscient leader, deserving of gratitude, fealty and adulation for his role as the Lord Protector of Israel.

That is why, in his world, it is impossible that he be held responsible for 7 October 2023. The only way to achieve that is through a permanent state of war. That is why phase two of the ceasefire agreement was never going to happen, since it includes not only a permanent ceasefire, but Israeli redeployment and eventual withdrawal from most of the Gaza Strip, while leaving Hamas lethally degraded, but with residual political power.

Why would Hamas retain that power? That’s simple. Because Netanyahu adamantly refused to engage in and derided all ideas of a post-war Gaza political framework that would supplant Hamas, of the kind the US proposed in December 2023 and again in early 2024: an inter-Arab force, including the Palestinian Authority, that would temporarily govern Gaza or at least dispense basic governance services.

Why would he object to that? That’s even simpler. For the same reason he concocted the myopic and ultimately tragic policy of strengthening Hamas in order to weaken the Palestinian Authority and prevent any political process on a final status agreement.

If the war ends with Hamas still standing, then it is an abject failure. If the war ends with the Palestinian Authority in the governing mix, then that represents a reintegration of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. Either of those outcomes magnifies Netanyahu’s failure – so the war must be resumed.

Alon Pinkas is a former Israeli consul general to the US and was a political adviser to two former prime ministers, Shimon Peres and Ehud Barak